After US revelations, National Defence College secured: minister

New Delhi, Nov 4 : The Indian government Wednesday said adequate measures had been taken to secure the National Defence College (NDC) here after the interrogation of Pakistan-born US-based men unravelled a terror plot to target the institution.

Minister of State for Defence M.M. Pallam Raju said at a function here that security measures were being taken according to updated threat perceptions.

"There is constant review of threat perception and target identification which can be targeted by terrorists. Even in this case, let me assure you that adequate precautions have been taken," Raju told reporters here.

Two Pakistan-born Chicago men, charged with plotting attacks in India and Denmark in association with the terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), were planning to target the NDC, US newspapers reported.

In court papers filed in Chicago Tuesday to have a federal judge detain Chicago businessman Tahawwura Hussain Rana without bond, federal prosecutors said he discussed the attack on NDC with David Coleman Headley, a Pakistan-born American national.

Rana, a Pakistan-born Canadian national, and Headley, whose former name was Daood Gilani, are also charged with plotting to attack Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. The newspaper had sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world in 2005 by publishing 12 cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

The NDC is a pioneering institute of its kind in Asia. The role of the college has remained largely unchanged since 1959, when the president of India sanctioned "the setting up of a National Defence College for providing instruction to senior service and civil officers in the wider aspects of higher direction and strategy of warfare".

--IANS